


Paradoxa – Legends of History – The Shadow

by NyeLung



Series: Paradoxaverse [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/F, Mirialan Female Sith Inquisitor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel, past Lord Scourge/Darth Revan mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:14:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9533168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyeLung/pseuds/NyeLung
Summary: She wakes without memories in a time that is not her own. Only with hunches of her past life she seeks her way and her memory in the time of the Cold War. But her memory is a dangerous place full of secrets that should better stay forgotten. Imarré's path lies in the shadow of Revan.





	1. Chapter 1

# Paradoxa – Legends of History – The Shadow

## Prologue

### 3643 BBY, Space

She woke confused and without orientation. She didn't know where she was nor what she was doing here. She didn't recognize the location she saw in dimmed, artificial light. Her right cheek hurt. Carefully, she wanted to test her cheek with her hand and noticed only then that she was bound by something. And her head was so heavy... Dizzily, she looked around. The light was bright enough to make out schemes but too dimmed to see details.

“I see you woke up”, she heard a calm, tender voice. She shuddered. The person felt wrong to her senses, dark. “Tell me about you. What do you know about Darth Revan?” She looked up and saw a pale face in the semi-darkness and intense, blood red eyes, that were piercing her innermost.

“There is nothing to talk about”, she noticed after a while with terrible clarity. She didn't know why she was here and even less did she know what to talk about. She didn't even know who or what Darth Revan was although that name resonated deeply inside her.

“Fascinating. You are not lying.” The pale face vanished from her line of sight and she had to turn her head to be able to keep watching the man. She felt something cold, aggravating in her mind, her senses. Instinctively, she pushed it away. “Oh, Force sensitive.” She knew that phrase. She just didn't know what it meant. It was all gone. There were only emotions and intuitions left.

The man sat down in front of her, his face thoughtful and his fingers threaded before his chin. Only now did she notice the red tattoo around his right eye, the short silvery eyes, the wrinkles in his face and the faceguard made of flexible woven metal. He was old but strong. She could feel it with senses she had no name for. And still she knew that he was actually weak, that there war far stronger, far more powerful beings out there. Far darker beings. “I am Darth Thanaton, Dark Lord of the Dark Council of the Sith and Master of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. So who are you and what are you doing on my ship?”

“I don't know”, she answered. She knew nothing. The word 'Sith' awakened emotions within her, so many, so contrary ones, that she herself didn't know what to make of them. “I know nothing.”

Thanaton huffed disparagingly but he believed her words. She felt it. “You are nothing”, he said with his calm voice. “You own nothing, no name, no identity, no memories.” Thanaton stood up. Slyly, like a carnivore before the attack. “You are nobody.” He stepped so close to her that she could feel his breath. She could smell him. Dust and artefacts smelled like this. Old knowledge, that had been written on paper or been engraved in stone. She remembered something like that just no details.

“You belong to me now.” Thanaton took a step back and with a languid movement of his hand he opened her shackles through the Force. Immediately, she pulled back her hands and massaged her wrists. “I don't need chains to bind you. You are a nobody and a nobody dies within the Empire. I am your Master now and you will obey me if you want to live.”

She wanted to protest, wanted to say that she was nobody's slave and wouldn't die within the Empire. She wanted to say that she could survive without his help. She knew it'd be a lie. She remembered nothing, was weak like a newborn nexu. She needed knowledge and power to survive and he would give it to her.

She couldn't even remember why it was so important that she survived. She only knew that she wasn't allowed to die. There was something she had to do. “I understand”, she answered but the answer felt incomplete. “Master”, she added and although the sentence felt right now, there was a feeling of unease inside her. As though it was right to call someone master just not Darth Thanaton.

“Good, you learn fast.” Thanaton sounded content. “The next time you kneel.” He turned away from her, so she couldn't see his face any longer but she could still feel him. Cold and dark he was, full of deep chasm but in his innermost he was burning hot like a star. He was curious. About her. “It would be for the best if you start now. For training.”

Obediently, she knelt down. This, too, was familiar to her. And still it felt wrong to kneel in front of Thanaton. She didn't understand it. She was nobody and her rough hunches didn't make any sense.

“You need a name. It wouldn't be appropriate for the apprentice of a Sith to just be called _slave_.” She waited silently. She had no idea what her name was. It just felt terrible to have no name at all. “Imarré. That will be your name from now on.”

“Thank you, Master.” She thought at least that she should say something like that. She liked the name. Imarré had a nice ring to it, just completely foreign to her. Her own the name, the name before she lost her memory, had to have been another one.

There was something else that didn't make sense to her, Imarré noticed while she still knelt and got used to her new name. “Master?”, she asked carefully. “Why did you ask me about Darth Revan?”

Thanaton hesitated before answering. Still he had the face turned away from her, but she could feel his doubts. Imarré felt that he didn't know exactly how to answer her and finally chose the truth. “Before you woke up you talked”, he started. Hesitantly. “ _I am Revan_. That's what you said and then some other names that all belong to the history of Darth Revan. Bastila Shan, Darth Malak, the Emperor. Do you remember?”

She tried to but nothing came to her mind. All those names made her remember emotions, no faces, no voices. Imarré didn't know who they were. She only knew that she felt divided concerning Darth Revan. There was affection for Bastila Shan and deep hate for Darth Malak and the Emperor. But she also felt that Thanaton hid something else. “What else was there, Master?”

Thanaton hesitated again, surprised this time. He hadn't counted on her to catch that. “There was another name, that didn't fit in with the others, but it is a male name so not yours. Who is Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

Imarré didn't know. There weren't even intuitions or emotions. It was as though the name belonged to a long forgotten dream.


	2. Chapter 2

## Chapter 1

„Let's try something, Imarré. Close your eyes.” Imarré did what Thanaton ordered. His voice wasn't imperious or anything like it. It was mellow and quiet. His voice made it easy to forget that he issued orders and not suggestions. “And now describe your looks.” What? Imarré didn't understand. “You haven't seen yourself yet, so describe to me. What do you look like?”

Imarré still didn't understand what Thanaton tried to achieve with it but she followed his orders. What did she think she looked like? She felt that she was muscular, trained. And she felt long hair on her back and her cheeks.

“What colour does your hair have?”

Imarré pondered the question, went deep into the void of her memories. Dark. Her hair was dark but not black. “A dark brown, I think.”

“And your eyes?”

This time she didn't have to think for long. An image appeared in her memories. Eyes full of sorrow, hate and love. “Dark blue.”

“Scars?”

She remembered a searing pain in her face. At her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. “Something in my face? I don't remember how I got it.”

“Your skin tone?”

She thought for a moment. She was sure to have spent lots and lots of time in the sun but also having been fully clothed all the time. “Pale.”

“Fascinating”, Thanaton murmured. “Open your eyes again. You can go and use the refresher. It's the corridor down on the right hand.”

Imarré got up, stumbled just once until she caught herself again and then walked towards the 'fresher. She felt weak and strange on her legs – as though they weren't her own. She opened the door and looked into the mirror.

Her first thought was that that wasn't her. Her hair wasn't as long or golden blonde as those. Her eyes were a dark blue, her eyebrows more accentuated. Instead pale blue eyes looked at her beneath rounded brows. Her face shouldn't have a web of burn marks and cuts. There should be a scar reaching once around it. Who was that person looking at her? That couldn't be her.

 

 

Imarré held the lightsaber in her hands. Thanaton had left her alone with it in his rooms while he attended some meeting on Dromund Kaas – the name made something swing in Imarré in response. She didn't dwell on it and concentrated on the lightsaber instead. It felt wrong but the feeling of a lightsaber was familiar to her. But this wasn't her lightsaber. This one's red crystals were drowned in hate and anger.

Violet. Her lightsaber had been violet.

She whirled the saber around once to get a feeling for its balance. Frowning, she took another look at the hilt. It was too long and there was a mechanic there that bypassed the usual security measures that would make the blade extinguish when the saber left the hand holding it. Had this lightsaber often been used for throws that it had an extra mechanic for that? Imarré remembered usually just keeping the activation button pushed with the Force while throwing her saber. She took a closer look. Hidden, there was another switch.

The lightsaber held horizontally in front of her, she pushed the switch only to recognize that her Master had given her a double bladed lightsaber. For a short moment she saw something with her mind's eye but it vanished so fast that she could only notice a blue double bladed lightsaber that was used against her.

Carefully, nearly gently she placed her second hand on the hilt and searched for the second pair of crystals using the Force. They buzzed with a thirst for fighting.

 

 

Thanaton seemed amused when he returned. At least that's what Imarré thought when looking at his face. On the other hand she couldn't be sure whether what he showed was what he felt. He kept his feelings guarded in the Force. And he was an artist, mimics and gestures were his tools.

“He's a Sith. All Sith must die”, a dark voice in her mind whispered. Imarré shook her head to get rid of it but her body moved to attack Thanaton.

He smiled. “You truly are fascinating.” Then he did something and she could feel how her body was forced to knee. “There is a darkness inside you, forcing you to attack me. How very intriguing. I wonder...”

“Master?”, she asked. She could fight down that urge to drive her weapon into his chest, to just go outside into the streets of Kaas City and search for other Sith and finally for – She shuddered when a sudden coldness crept into her.

“The Emperor is Death. For you, me, the galaxy”, the voice returned, even louder now.

“There is a voice”, she explained. “It's urging me to kill all Sith, it's warning me about the Emperor because he will bring death to all.”

Thanaton mustered her for a while longer and Imarré was sure that he at least had a theory. She only hoped that he would share it with her. “Very fascinating. I think you carry memories in that mind of yours that are not yours to have.” His eyes were cold but he seemed genuinely interested. “I would love to study that brain of yours but I think that would kill you and then all that knowledge will be gone. What a shame.” One hand gripped her chin and made her look up to him. “Don't think about it any more, Imarré”, he ordered in that gentle voice. “How does that lightsaber feel to you?”

“Angry, Master.” She fought back for control over her body and extinguished the blades. “I know that I had a lightsaber once but only with one blade and it was violet, less angry, less dark.” She tried to concentrate on the memory a bit more but it hurt her mind and so she stopped. “These crystals are steeped in the dark side. It feels familiar and yet not.”

He still gripped her chin and mustered her contemplatively as though he could get his answers that way. “Truly. There seem to be two parts of your personality. I wonder how that came to be … You spoke of Revan … I will have to see about that.”

Imarré wondered whether he expected an answer but it didn't seem like it.

“You were right about the lightsaber.” He let go of her. “It was mine before I became a Sith Lord and a member of the Dark Council. I've been trained as an assassin but now I prefer to fight only with the Force, so you can use it as you see fit.”

Imarré didn't know how she could see the lightning coming for her, she just knew. It was only thanks to her reflexes that she could use the Force and the lightsaber to shield herself from the lightning bolt that otherwise would have drowned her nerves in searing pain.

“Good, Imarré”, he praised her. A smile appeared on his face and Imarré was near to certain that it was an honest smile, that he was actually pleased. “You show enough talent to be sent to Korriban to train.” Something in her shuddered in revulsion upon hearing the name. “Of course I won't see to your training personally. I have other matters to attend to with the Dark Council. You will be trained by Overseer Harkun. He will give you tasks to fulfil. Your only weapons will be my former lightsaber and your wits. If you survive, you can decide whether you want to build your own lightsaber or keep mine. If you survive I will make you my apprentice and will teach you all I know. If you survive I will tell you everything I know about your circumstances.”

Imarré didn't ask any questions. She knew that he would forget her should she die. But she would not let herself be kept back by that. She knew, deep within her very core, that she would have to survive. There were things she had to do, important things that only she could do and she was needed on an elementary level. But what she had to do that was buried in that dark place in her memory just like the memories of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, what does Thanaton guess what Imarré is? You have one answer because of the tags but what about that darkness? Well, stay tuned for more until I've translated and edited another chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I admit: this is a fast update. Don't get used to it. But at least you're now on the same page as the German readers. At least with this story.

## Chapter 2

### 3643 BBY, Korriban

Korriban, ancient birthplace of the Sith, from ancient times the place where acolythes did the last steps toward being an apprentice – or died. The whole planet made Imarré feel uneasy, even when she had been only looking from the orbit and now, that she was sitting in the shuttle landing on the appointed platform, the uneasiness grew stronger. There were memories here, ghosts of the past, that refused to rest. She was sure that she had been here before. She was also sure that it hadn't ended well.

Hurried, she left the shuttle when she noticed that there were people waiting. She wasn't alone. There was a Mirialan girl with her and a red-skinned young man. Sith, it whispered in her head. Pureblood. The disgust she felt, didn't surprise her. Arrogance radiated from him like heat from a fire. She also had to fight down the urge to kill him.

“Late, like expected of slave scum.” He didn't look at the pureblood and concentrated on the Mirialan instead. Maybe that was Harkun. Just like Thanaton he bore a tattoo around one eye albeit with a different motive. Slowly, Imarré wondered whether that was standard for Sith.

“Lord Zash wants to take one of you as her apprentice. The one who lives and completes her trials. Look at Ffon. He will win. He's of pure blood.” He pointed to the Sith that had bumped into Imarré. The Mirialan's eyes turned into slits.

“I'm not here for Lord Zash”, Imarré spoke up clearly. All eyes suddenly were on her. “I was sent by Darth Thanaton.”

“Ah, the slave of Darth Thanaton.” The man mustered her now with more interest and Imarré held his gaze. She'd seen worse although she couldn't remember. “The rest of you can go. Those who haven't been late” he side-eyed the Mirialan “know what to do. The rest will have to just see what to do.”

Hastily, the other slaves scurried away. The Mirialan – she started to make Imarré like her – sent her a last sympathetic glance and then partnered with an insecure looking human girl. 

“And what will be my task?” Imarré didn't interrupt their eye contact, didn't blink. Overseer Harkun didn't seem to like that. Tough luck for him because he couldn't make her crawl. She could feel how he was older, more experienced but she had far more raw strength at her disposal. She could crush him unlike Thanaton.

“Don't be too full of yourself, scum.” Harkun took a step towards her to look intimidating and failed at it. He was smaller than her and also … she had seen into deeper abysses and come back. Harkun was nothing.

“Forgive me.” Imarré didn't mean it. They both knew that. But she looked to the ground in submission although she might really be able to kill him. On the other hand she was sure that Thanaton wouldn't appreciate it. “I spoke without thinking.”

Harkun narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything. At first, Imarré wouldn't have thought anything about it but then there was suddenly a pressure on her mind, pushing her. Even before she could think – thoughts weren't necessary here – she trusted her instincts and pushed back. Harkun narrowed his eyes even further. The pressure rose but Imarré stood against it. She shielded herself, built a wall around her mind and she knew that this wasn't her first time doing it and that her wall would keep Harkun out.

“Alright, acolythe. Maybe Darth Thanaton's interest in you is not without reason.” Imarré didn't answer. Years ago she would have spoken up. Not any longer. “Your task will be to go into the tomb to Spindrall. Spindrall is a nutjob but Zash and Thanaton both think highly of him.”

Involuntarily, Imarré shuddered when she remembered tombs, full of dark ghosts. The memory was just a short light in the dark. Maybe it wasn't even a memory but a vision. “The dead are waiting”, she murmured. The dead were waiting in their tombs.

Harkun huffed in derision. “If you're afraid, acolythe, you're wrong here. Of course the tombs are full of skeletons. Skeletons of acolythes and slaves like you that failed. Now go. There's the entrance.”

 

Imarré blinked a few times when she left the small shuttle landing platform. She had the feeling that Korriban looked wrong. The sun burnt down without mercy, searing every life that dared to set foot outside. So far it was like she felt was right. But where were the storms that whipped the sand so that you had to shield your eyes? Where was the asphyxiating feeling that you were the only person on the planet with only the dead and creatures of the Dark side as company?

There were flesh-coloured creatures roaming the sands. They could move really fast with all those little hind legs as one of the acolythes realized who wouldn't or couldn't use his training saber. The jaws full of long, strong teeth and the tail with sharp spikes took care of the rest. K'lor slugs, her memory provided another inkling of information. She should be careful. The slug spit was acidic on a high level.

The tomb she had to enter wasn't far away. Imarré could do it if she used the Force to run faster. Probably the slug spit would reach her first and then she would be in trouble. The Force seemed to be the key but she just couldn't remember. Inwardly, Imarré cursed her mind that it wouldn't allow her to access the much needed informations in her memories. She knew that there was everything she needed to know.

However, a solution wouldn't present itself if she just stayed here. The K'lor slugs would scent her first and then collectively attack her. Imarré reached for the hilt of Thanaton's lightsaber and ignited the blades before she reached for the Force to surround herself with a blanket, a shied that would guard her.

The buzzing of the blades was belligerent when Imarré darted forward to take the head of the first slug in her path and then evaded the tail that was still trying to hit her. Imarré ducked under the next swing of another tail, jumped and then took another head. It was the Force that told her when and where the slugs would attack. She followed its guidance just like her memories commanded.

Finally, she reached the tomb's entrance and noticed in surprise that the slugs from outside were reluctant to follow her inside. There had also been K'lor slugs in here but the slaves that had been sent before Imarré had already killed them. However, the Force warned her not to grow complacent. There was no imminent threat but there was something here. She extinguished her blades anyway and took the stairs down.

She had only taken a few steps when she was attacked again by one of the slaves, a tall, strong young man that hadn't been overly sensitive to the Force if she compared him to Darth Thanaton, herself or even Harkun. His eyes looked at her with a crazy glimmer. “You have a lightsaber”, he yelled. “The others are dead and I will die but with your lightsaber I've got a chance.” He swung at her again with the training blade he had been given.

Imarré only reacted. She used the Force, wrapped it around her hand and stopped the slave's blade with her bare hand. The blade couldn't hurt her, how could it when being pitted against the power of the Force? Surprise and confusion showed in the face of the slave, then fear. The grip of his hands around the hilt of the training saber grew lax and Imarré took it from him without problems. The fear became terror when Imarré turned the blade around and ran it into his stomach.

There was a part in her that was appalled at her actions. He had been defenceless. She didn't have to kill him. Another part argued that he had been mad and would have attacked her again, given the chance.

“He's a Sith. All Sith must die”, the darkness growled.

Hastily, Imarré left the corpse behind. As soon as the K'lor slugs in the valley noticed that the tomb's entrance wasn't defended any longer, they would come and take care of it. She herself had to go deeper into the tomb, further into the darkness where she could hear the whispers of the dead.

The dead were waiting for her.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue in this chapter has been taken directly from the game, some has been changed according to the story and some is completely made up. okay, most of it.

### Chapter 3

Finally, she had reached the part of the tomb that Spindrall had claimed for himself. There were acolytes kneeling before his pedestal and Spindrall himself kneeling in meditation before a damaged sarcophagus that was still hiding what was inside.

“Ah, another slave sent by Harkun. Welcome to my humble hole. You are here for your trial, yes?”

“I was sent here to earn your approval, yes.” Imarré bowed her head in respect although she failed to see why she should respect this old man who was at most a husk of former glory left to rot in the tombs of Korriban.

“Here to learn the ways of the Sith from a doddering old man in a tomb, is that what you think?” Spindrall eyed her sharply. “I know the way of things on the surface and chose to leave them to their intrigues. I learnt the ways of the Sith here and I teach them just the same. But before I teach you or give you my mark of approval, you must pass a trial of blood. Survive, and I will teach you what I know.”

Imarré braced herself for an attack by Spindrall. It didn't come. Instead she could hear training sabres being activated in her back and she turned around to finally take in the six acolytes in the room. She had seen them before in the shuttle hangar. Some of them had been sent here by Harkun. Maybe some were here far longer, also sent here by Harkun waiting to be killed. Or killing whoever came in.

Imarré activated one of the blades of her lightsaber. She had to live and she would kill to survive. In this society built on shed blood, she would survive to find the purpose that was hidden somewhere in her lost memories.

It was too easy for a battle of life and death. They moved with determination but far too slow for Imarré. They were ready to kill even though it would be their first kill and still they hesitated although their life was on the line. Imarré had no such qualms. She had taken lives before, many lives, her mind told her.

Spindrall applauded when she was done, speckles of blood in her face. “Excellent. These former acolytes wanted nothing more than to earn their second chance for glory by killing you and taking your place. But your desire proved stronger and their blood became the mantle of your victory. Well done – but you are not Sith yet.”

Imarré wasn't so sure about that. She just felt exhausted from killing people who could have had a life, had they not been sent to Korriban. If that was the feeling of victory, she could do it without.

“Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, power. Through power, victory. Through victory my chains are broken. This is the Sith code. Commit it to your heart and -”

He was interrupted by a sudden glowing hand stretched out from the wall. The rest of the figure followed. A ghost, Imarré thought. “The dead are waiting”, she whispered to herself. So this was what she had felt.

“I have lain asleep for a long time. Who called me? I was gone, part of the Force, who calls me back?”

Imarré took a step back in fear, just like Spindrall. This was the tomb of Ajunta Pall. Who else could have just appeared? One of the first Sith who wasn't even supposed to be here, who had been woken from his slumber and Imarré was afraid what he would do to her.

His gaze found her, red eyes shining in the unearthly light of a ghost. “Acolyte, it was you though not by your strength.... “ The ghost drifted closer and Imarré fell in a terrified stupor. A hand was reached out and he touched her forehead. “Ah, you are walking in the shadow of Revan. You are walking on the paths of the dead. You belong to us.”

Imarré tried to form words, a response but nothing would come.

“Now, as it was you who raised me, send me back. I no longer have any desire to interact with the living and they would never stop to pester me for answers. Send me back to sleep as Revan did.”

“I- I don't know how”, she stammered.

“Smash my sarcophagus. Take my holocron to make sure that no one else will disturb my slumber. Collapse the tomb. It is only a material reminder of my existence. Make them forget about me.” The ghost drifted back and forth. “And now, let me go. It is your power that binds me, that calls me. Let me go, let me sleep.”

“I let you go”, Imarré said. She knew of no other way. She hadn't summoned the ghost, so she didn't know how else to let him go. “Go. Find peace.”

“Ah, yes”, the voice of the ghost echoed, even more now than before. “Peace. I have found peace when Revan was here. I have found peace here.”

“Then go. Sleep and be forgotten the way you wished it.”

“I will, young acolyte walking the path of Revan. Beware of the shadows.”

And then he was gone. Just as he had appeared, the ghost simply vanished in the tomb walls.

“I think you should look for a new site to teach acolytes”, Imarré finally said to Spindrall. “This tomb will vanish as he wished.”

“I think I will...” Spindrall drifted off and looked at her. “You have earned my approval. The Sith approve of strength after all and calling forth a long sleeping ghost is no easy feat.” Again, he looked at her, as though he was wondering where she had hidden such strength. “I will not tell what happened here. Your secret is save with me, walker in the shadows of Revan.”

“Thank you.”

As Spindrall left, Imarré smashed the lid of the sarcophagus. Just as the ghost of Ajunta Pall had said, a holocron lay there. Somehow, she expected it to have the form of a little pyramid and was confused when she found a red glowing cube. “I better take this then”, she murmured and vanished the holocron in her belt. It was smaller than she was used to.

She left the tomb in a hurry, all too grateful to leave the mysterious words behind. The shadow of Revan, whatever it was. Only when the fresh, dusty air of Korriban was once again filling her lungs, did she turn around and started to calm her thoughts. To reach for the Force and for the tomb, for the old, old walls and pillars. There were tomb looters down there, some unlucky acolytes and a Lord or two. She prayed they would all get out fast.

The rumbling of falling stones and earth and sand filled the air after Imarré had knocked down one pillar. Screams followed, screams and haste and running. 

She turned away, looking upon the mighty statues marking the entry of the Sith academy. So this was where her path was. Shadow of Revan be damned. She would walk her own path. No dead, no Revan could tell her otherwise.


End file.
